author: UnderHerToes
You think you see a shadow pass by the door but dismiss it as exhilarated hallucination, a mistake you'll remember. You set the transposer on the table and swing your satchel around. As you flip open its pouch, a voice calls out to you, "Scott Story? I didn't know you came in early." You don't move. The device is so close it could almost fall into your bag, but you hesitate to take any action.
'She already knows it's me so I might as well answer' you think quickly, "Yeah," you slowly turn to meet your nuisance, "sometimes."
It is the lady night herself, Angelina Scarlette, stereotypical goth if there ever was one. She stands there in black dress, with fishnet mesh here and there, and tall black boots to her knees. Her long, black hair was draping in two, high arching tails, and she pursed her large lips into a pout. You'd never talked to her much these last few years, just as you never saw her talk with anyone else, but from the few times you spoke, you gathered she was more intelligent than she shows. "What are you doing in the lab so early? I didn't think anyone was allowed in here without supervision." She smiles devilishly and approaches you with seductive stride.
"Well, I was..." You freeze as she brushes against you, surely looking at the device on the table. You abort, "Well, I got what I needed to. I guess I should go now." You move away from the table quickly, leaving her standing alone. She looks to the floor then to the table where her black fingernails pass over the matter transposer. You watch as she lifts it in her hands, and you stop your slide to the door.
"Sometimes," Angelina whispers, "sometimes I feel like no one cares about me... that no one ever will." She takes the handle by the throat and aims the device at her chest. "And I just want it to end." She looks up at you and your mouth agape in fear, but eyes swollen with anticipation. She pulls the trigger and a beam of light swallows her, moves around her figure as her figure swells, developing upward before the light fades away. Angelina looks at her hands and chest, seemingly disappointed to be alive, then she looks to you again, only from a radically different vantage point. "Woah, what-" she cries as her hair brushes against the suddenly low ceiling. "Scott! What is this!?"
You approach her as she sits against the table, holding her knees which alone stood just below your chest. You explain, "It's okay. I think it's reversible. That machine there is a matter tr..."
"Well, that's good. Now how do I do that!?" She looks over the device and sees the growth and shrink settings. She turns it towards shrink and hastily fires it against her skin. You hop away as the light engulfs her again, revealing a more regular-dimensioned Angelina moments later. She gets up from the floor and throws the transposer on the table. She hops up and down to shake off the feeling. "Okay. Okay. I'm okay. I wasn't expecting that. I'm okay." She stands next to you now eye to eye, "and I think I'm a few inches taller too."